This Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy

[EastAnglianLefty]

The interventionism of the Tories mostly comes down to being willing to step in when a system whose collapse they'd been warned about for years (and ignored) finally starts to collapse in a way that might make them unpopular. That's hardly state planning.

[EastAnglianLefty]

99 rebels on vaccine passports, including Louie French, elected at the Bexley by-election; and Stephen Hammond, one of the 21 Brexit rebels all those years ago...

102 Tories voting against some aspect of the measures overall.

Plus smaller Labour rebellions (especially on the NHS staff vote)

Two opposition front benchers quit over this - any Tories?

Laurence Robertson was fired as unpaid trade envoy to Angola and Zambia for defying the whip. Nobody with an actual job.

[EastAnglianLefty]

It's worth noting that both the Whips Office and the shadow whipping operation being run by Burns et al. are quite happy to make threats and use intimidation tactics. That wasn't unknown before, but the extent of it seems to have increased.

That probably means that there's a greater chance those submitting letters will do so without announcing it. Some circumstantial support for this can be found in the fact that most of those who have announced letters are people the Whips have less authority over (veterans no longer being considered for ministerial office and select committee chairs elected by their peers.)

[EastAnglianLefty]

Interestingly he put the letter in 3 weeks ago, but is only announcing it publicly now - presumably those plotting against Johnson want to keep up a constant stream of announcements to build momentum and win over waverers.

[EastAnglianLefty]

The Defence Secretary making a public deal of cancelling a family holiday to deal with Ukraine, which has gotten both the Evening Standard and the Telegraph politics team excited for some reason. Admirable yes, but only noteworthy because the implication is that Wallace is drawing a contrast (for the purpose of his fellow MPs) with Raab staying on holiday abroad during the fall of Kabul - which led to his fall from grace.

https://mobile.twitter.com/BWallaceMP/status/1492820627908177925
I promise I won’t keep pushing ‘surprise PM’ candidate Ben Wallace conspiracies in this thread, but given how much his stock has risen in the last month, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him as the defacto candidate for FCO Secretary under a new PM (who will either want to demote Truss, or be Truss herself, creating a vacancy), or at least floated as a consensus leadership candidate by a couple of backbenchers later in the year.

It's notable that he is actually one of Johnson's few genuine allies in Parliament. Johnson lacks the capacity for gratitude to try to boost him if he gets deposed, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the diehards gravitate to a Wallace candidacy, given that some of them are quietly irritated by how obviously Truss is on manouevres.

[EastAnglianLefty]

^ It's increasingly really hard to see Boris not getting to boot after the locals, if what we now expect to happen comes to pass...

I'm not sure about that. The Tory expectation management is suggesting a par result for them would be losing 750-1000 seats, which would be 1995-style bad, and a lot of journalists are falling for it hook, line and sinker.

[EastAnglianLefty]

We did, but it was completely unwinnable in 2010 - to the extent that the local CLP had been trying to deselect the candidate for being useless for about 2 years at that point, but had been ignored on the assumption that it didn't make any difference anyway.

[EastAnglianLefty]

But anyway there are clear contradictions between the libertarian southerners and Johnsonite northern Tory Mps with loads of subfactions.

This is a common belief, but there is in fact very little evidence that the (deep and severe) divisions in the parliamentary Conservative party map on to the geography of their seats in any coherent manner.

[EastAnglianLefty]

I'd argue that the Tory party is best understood not primarily in terms of factions but in terms of much smaller groupings round networks of particular individuals or organisations. These then broadly congeal into a pro-leadership faction and an anti-leadership faction, but it's fairly easy for whole groupings to jump from one side of the divide to the other, and as most people are part of several networks it's also easy for these networks to have a foot in both camps.

[EastAnglianLefty]

There aren't *that* many of the latter in Scotland, though.

But quite a lot in the Scottish Tories.

[EastAnglianLefty]

FWIW Payne is probably unlikely to run this time, but mostly because the seats he'd have a decent shot at winning are likely to either go Labour or be uncomfortably marginal this time. Expect to see him on a ballot paper in 2029 instead.

[EastAnglianLefty]

It also depends how interchangeable the various anti-Sunak groupings are. Are those who want Johnson back also willing to work in support of Braverman and vice versa? How about the lingering group of Truss ultras?

[EastAnglianLefty]

She can try elsewhere, but it's hard to see what she has to offer that would appeal to other associations. South Shropshire (currently known as Ludlow) will be an open seat but I doubt she'll have a shot at that. Maybe she could try for North Shropshire and hope for a swingback?

[EastAnglianLefty]

If you check his Twitter replies, you'll find he's made an effort to signal-boost some of the more outlandish ones.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Nobody in the Northern Isles speaks Gaelic. That said, that's no reason to tell Payne and Mason that.

[EastAnglianLefty]

And O'Brien is a very online FBPE-er, rather than a left-winger.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Similarly, for Nottingham it mentions the possibility of extending the tram to Clifton South, which happened eight years ago.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Chris Grayling, former Leader of the House, Justice and Transport Secretary is standing down. Not a popular minister, but one who served throughout the Cameron and May years.

Was actually Shadow Home Secretary before being passed over for May herself during government formation in 2010. Have never been able to find a concrete reason why (beyond his bumbling reputation, perhaps) - if someone (Al?) has the anecdote, I'd love to hear it.

He embarrassed himself during the short campaign by defending the rights of B&B owners to refuse to accommodate guests who turned out to be gay. It was partly a case of the Lib Dems vetoing him, but mostly Cameron looking for any excuse to boot out an obvious liability.

[EastAnglianLefty]

This sounds grim. Beyond the details, there’s the fact the party has known about this since *2017* apparently:
https://twitter.com/Mr_John_Oxley/status/1713865357025243572
Galling that Johnson gave him a made-up ministerial job (Deputy Leader of the House) in his caretaker government, as thanks for his loyalty, right after being ousted for the very similar Pincher scandal.

Since 2015 - the allegations were first made to the party in 2015, but no action was taken until they were reported again in 2017.

[EastAnglianLefty]

It's a very odd constituency - more than half of it is made up of Basildon, which has a reputation as one of the more right-wing New Towns but is nevertheless extremely swing, and the more Labour-inclined half of the town at that. However, it's balanced out by Billericay, which contributes fewer electors but is one of the most indomitably Conservative places in the country.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Yes, the account is a good clearing house for tips (of varying reliability) but Crick himself is a crank and pretty much all his interpretations are demonstrably ridiculous.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Some of the chicken runners will probably be found a seat at the last moment by finding an old duffer who will agree to retire. Then again, that's the sort of thing that sometimes causes enough bad blood to cost 500-1000 votes, and when even 'safe' seats look a little dicey this time, that could lead to all end of hilarity.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Which "chicken runners" have actually found new seats?  Not counting those where there's an overlap with their existing seat, I'm aware of Eddie Hughes (Walsall N), who I assume is now the candidate again in Tamworth, Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton SW), selected in South Shropshire, and Simon Baynes (Clwyd S), selected in North Shropshire.

And who is trying but hasn't found a new seat yet?  There's Stuart Andrew (Pudsey), Richard Holden (NW Durham), Andy Carter (Warrington S) and Jamie Wallis (Bridgend); any others?

Of course some of these have genuinely taken a hit from the relevant Boundary Commission, though barring a big Tory recovery most of them would be heading for defeat boundary changes or not.

There's Nicola Richards in West Bromwich E (repeatedly linked to Solihull.) and Kieran Mullan in Crewe & Nantwich, who just lost the selection contest for Chester South & Eddisbury. I believe Scott Benton was also looking before he lost the whip. Chris Clarkson has been counted as displaced and therefore eligible to look elsewhere; I'm not sure if he's turned up on a shortlist yet though.

[EastAnglianLefty]

It's unclear whether Mitchell's low ratings are about him being a relatively liberal Tory, or just reflect the hostility of ConHome readers to International Development as a concept. Probably a mixture of both.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Being Liz Truss's viceroy on earth?